There, The Eyes
by HeadlessNed
Summary: End-verse. AU-but-not-AU. Cas/Dean. A closer look on the insides of Cas's scrambled mind. Well, okay. It's end-verse, but it's another kind of end-verse. Sam is still with them. It's post-season 8.
1. Sleep No More

Somehow it always comes back to the same three things:

_Here we go round the prickly pear, prickly pear, prickly pear_

-You

-The gun

-The end of the world

_Here we go round the prickly pear at five o clock in the morning._

I was stopped by the train tracks the day they found us.  
They stopped me and they asked me,  
Name, age, language?  
I told them my age, they laughed.  
I told them my name, they laughed.  
I politely answered - in my native language - the tongue I preferred.  
They told me to get off the drugs  
And gave me a gun.

**Between the idea**

[FAST-FORWARD]:

The gun.  
The gun, the bullet, the brains.  
I blew out my brains at the train tracks.

**And the reality,**

[RESET]:

The gun.  
The gun, the bullet, the head [- dark, overgrown strands; unwashed, each ending at a tiny, careless split.]  
My finger froze on the trigger when yours [gently, always so gently] wrapped around my wrist.

**Between the motion**

[RESET]:

The gun.  
The gun, the gun, the gun.  
Oh, the chill of the barrel kissing my temple.  
It wants in, it wants in, it wants in.  
It wants to blow into my brain and blow out what it finds on the other side.  
It wants release; I want release.  
It wants, it wants, I want.  
You hit me with a crowbar and I fall, I fall, I fall - clitter-clat.

**And the act**

[REWIND]:

I wake up in a dark room.

_[Crazy.]_

My eyes are dark,

mal-adjusted.

_[I was crazy once.] _

I hate the dark;

almost as much as I hate blue -

the color of the sky.

_[They locked me in a room._]

The door is locked.

The door is locked.

No, no.

The door can't be locked.

No no no no no no non I ne-  
_O that this too too solid flesh would melt,  
_-ed the gun.  
_Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew_

I need-

_[A rubber room.]_

The door is stuck.

_[With rubber mice.]_

The gun, the gun, the gun.

_[I hate rubber mice.]_

I swallow without spit.

My throat is dry.

You're asleep on the couch.

The gun is underneath the pillow.

_[The cheese. The cheese makes me crazy.]_

You blink.

I blink.

Your eyes are-  
_adorations, fertile tears, groans that thunder love, sighs of fire_-

_[Crazy. I was crazy once.]_

Green, blue, hazel, bursting galaxies of intent;

_[They locked me in a room.]_

A lightless swamp -

_[I loved that room.]_

The setting of my chosen death,  
_Shape without form, shade without colour,  
Paralyzed force, gesture without motion;_

_[I died in that room.]_

A flicker of resistance surrounded by the milky waters of pale, blue-

_[They buried me where the flowers grew.]_

Beautiful.

_For Thine is_  
_Life is_  
_For Thine is the..._

_[The flowers grew up and the roots grew down.]_

You shift, you sigh.  
I quietly retrieve the gun.

_[A worm tickled my nose.] _

The gun, the gun, the gun...

_[That drove me crazy.]_

The gun, the gun-  
But _there_,  
The eyes...

_[Crazy. I was crazy once...]_

_This is the way the world ends,  
This is the way the world ends,_

**Falls the Shadow.**

_This is the way the world ends,  
Not with a bang but a whimper._

* * *

**References: **

Hamlet's 1st Soliloquy:

___"O that this too too solid flesh would melt,__  
____Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!"_

Twelfth Night:

_"With adorations, fertile tears, with groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire!"_

The Hollow Men by T. S. Eliot:

_"Here we go round the prickly pear, prickly pear, prickly pear  
__Here we go round the prickly pear at five o clock in the morning."_

"_Shape without form, shade without colour,  
Paralyzed force, gesture without motion;"  
_

_"This is the way the world ends,  
__This is the way the world ends,  
__This is the way the world ends,  
__Not with a bang but a whimper."_

_"Between the idea  
And the reality  
Between the motion  
And the act  
Falls the Shadow."_

_"For Thine is  
Life is  
For Thine is the"_

"Crazy. I was crazy once...":

_"Crazy. I was crazy once. They locked me in a room. A rubber room. With rubber mice. I hate rubber mice. The cheese. The cheese makes me crazy. Crazy. I was crazy once. They locked me in a room. I loved that room. I died in that room. They buried me where the flowers grew. The flowers grew up and the roots grew down. A worm tickled my nose. That drove me crazy. Crazy. I was crazy once..."_


	2. Chapter 2

Dean shot out of bed and tore the gun out of Castiel's hand. He flipped the safety on and threw it down on the bed. He stared at the other man, wordless. Cas seemed a little lost. He gingerly reached a hand up to scratch at his upper lip. He wouldn't meet Dean's eyes.

"Okay. What was that?"

Cas shrugged; cleared his throat.

"I guess I got a little too excited."

Dean continued to stare. Eventually Castiel began to blubber under the scrutiny. Clipped explanations were lost among apologies and he watched, just watched as Cas found his way back to himself.

"I'm sorry. That was uncalled for. Um… I'm not really sure… do you think-"

You want to know what I think? I think that sometimes I look at you and I just want to wrap you up and keep you safe."

Castiel stopped dead in his tracks.

"Dean…"

"You're the kind of person I could just hold. But I can't do that. You know I can't do that. I can't do that because if I did, I'm afraid it would push us further apart right now than bring us closer together and that scares the hell out of me. Because how can I, how can I do this when you're…"

Still no eyes.

"Say it."

"No."

They came to a familiar stalemate and the current rested between them for a few beats before Castiel cleared his throat and raised his voice a little.

"Ah, come on. Everyone's falling apart. It's the end of the world, remember?"

This was just how they talked now. It wasn't "Hello," or "Good Morning, love." They were never going to be those types of people. They never had a chance.

"You know Sam always told me if Lucifer didn't bring the apocalypse the angels would."

Castiel cringed at the usage of the term 'angel,' and the reminder that he was ever anything but a troubled, malnourished, maladjusted human male, and stiffened. Dean let in a desperate little gasp and crossed the room.

* * *

After the fall, after they'd all been brokenly reunited, Castiel had reverted to one of his previous means of self-preservation. He wasn't making much sense. It was like talking to a child sometimes. It wasn't that he didn't understand or that he wasn't listening: he wasn't insane, he was hurt. And he was feeling it, for real, for the first time in his life. In the beginning, people would torment Cas. It was senseless, ceaseless, and it ripped into him like nothing the brothers had ever seen. It was like he was being punished for all his kindness, all the times he had vouched for humanity. The day Dean found him locked in a dark storage unit was the last straw. They moved Cas out of his crappy one bedroom apartment and into the bunker.

"I'm just not sure how much farther he can be pushed," Dean whispered to Sam in front of the fire one night. "He's lost his family, his identity... I mean, practically everything he thought he knew about himself and what he could depend on is gone."

* * *

They didn't embrace. In fact, Dean made no movements to touch him at all. But he stood as close as he dared and forced Castiel to look at him, forced him to make some kind of human contact that didn't revolve around violence. What he found was more vulnerable than he was prepared or equipped to deal with.

"What happened?" he whispered.

Cas broke their eyes and looked away. Dean was about to step away, give him his space, when Castiel darted a hand forward, behind Dean's neck, and pulled him in until Dean's shoulder met his forehead.

This was as close as Cas was willing to get. It was closer than they'd gotten since Purgatory, since Cas became human. Touch was different for him somehow. It was more intense; he was more in tune with his flesh. That knowledge in Dean's brain made this moment infinitely important. This meant they were getting somewhere, this meant it was possible to get through to him.


End file.
